Independence Forever! Don’t Ratify the UN Disabilities Treaty!

There’s an old story from the Jewish shetls of Eastern Europe. There was a singing contest among the animals. The Nightingale loses, despite her lovely singing voice. Looking down on the jury, she sees the grunting wild pigs. She weeps, not because she lost, she says. “But see who my judges are!”

America must feel like the Nightingale whenever she has to go before a UN panel.

I had the honor of serving our country as U.S. Ambassador to the UN’s Human Rights Commission. In those days, the UN body had such worthy respecters of human rights as Algeria, Libya, Syria, Vietnam, and Sudan. Today, the UN Human Rights panel now contains such paragons as China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.

See who our judges are. Tuesday, the U.S. Senate will be asked to ratify the new UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). It’s another of those sound-good UN efforts that fall apart under examination.

The Heritage Foundation has warned against this document, which will seriously compromise American sovereignty. Heritage experts refer to it as another UN power grab. They’re right.

Just consider how well the UN is doing with its acknowledged responsibilities. The UN never said a word against the Soviet Gulag-the Communist system of slave labor camps. Millions of Russians and other ethnic minorities died starving or shot in those camps. Some even died mining radioactive uranium for Soviet H-bombs. No UN word of protest.

China? China has a Laogai system of “re-education” (forced labor) camps. UN interest in these? Nada. The UN was no help in Rwanda as hundreds of thousands died. Nor in Bosnia. The UN twiddled its thumbs over ethnic cleansing. The UN’s Iraq “Oil for Food” program-supposedly intended to relieve starving Iraqi children-enriched Saddam Hussein’s sons, and the son of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, but did little to help the children of Iraq. It was the world’s largest financial scandal. But it’s been conveniently dropped down the memory hole at UN Headquarters at Turtle Bay in New York.

The Hudson Institute’s scholar, John Fonte, has carefully studied the ongoing effort of UN panels and the irresponsible influence of NGOs on that body. NGOs-non-governmental organizations-are accredited by the UN to lobby its constituent bodies.

Most of these NGOs are far left outfits that wage what Fonte calls “lawfare” against the United States and other liberal democracies. Fonte’s important book is titled, Sovereignty or Submission: Will Americans Rule Themselves or be Ruled by Others? John Fonte asks use to consider whether we will subordinate American laws and institutions to an unrepresentative UN and the NGOs that are so powerful within it.

[Full disclosure: Family Research Council is an accredited NGO at the UN. My organization took this step to rally pro-family forces in the international community against what so many other NGOs are trying to impose on us.]

We now have thirty-six U.S. Senators on record against ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. All of these senators are Republicans. That is four more than are necessary to defeat this treaty. We need to bring more senators-including Democrats–on board to stop this dangerous surrender of sovereignty to the UN.

We need to remember the last words of advice John Adams gave us. He was asked for his reaction to the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence he had done so much to secure: Independence Forever, said the aged sage. As if to underscore those brave words, that great patriot died on July 4, 1826. We must preserve what he and so many others in our storied past have given to us. Keep America American.

Editor’s Note: Ken Blackwell is a former U.S. ambassador to UN Human Rights Commission.

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In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. [Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml]